Tags

Comments

Discovered Nerdist just a few months back. First episode was Andy Samberg. Second, Henry Rollins. I’ve been hooked since.
Dave Grohl on the Nerdist was spectacular. I appreciated his musings on life with a four year old (since I have a munchkin too) and the influence (or lack of) that parents can have on their musical choices. And, it’s Dave effing Grohl. Seriously?
Anyway, one of the parts that stayed with me is the hope that music has circled the evolution wagon and we are (hopefully) at a pre-punk era where people will look for something that isn’t what pop music is today and declare themselves unsatisfied. Brilliant thought and happy to chew on that for a while.

I’ve been on materinity leave for the past 8wks and now that I’m back at work I’m catching up on the podcast. This podcast was AWESOME! I love Dave Grohl, I know NOTHING about music, other that I like to listen to it, and this podcast was soooo entertaining.

subtlesteve : It’s very rare to come across mind blowing insight on the internet, especially in the comments section, but you have blown my mind. As an artist, I have honestly never thought of what I produce in the terms you describe, but now, I know I’ll keep that simile in my head forever. From a newly challenged artist: Thank you sir.

On the recurring topic whether comedians stop being funny when they get older and whether artists generally stop being creative once they have recognition and material comforts, I would like to expand the hypothesis. I think artists are machines that transform emotions and ideas into things you can see, touch, or hear. While some artists only figure out how to transform rage into art, others figure out how to transform joy and other things that don’t fade as you get successful the way rage does.

For instance, Paul McCartney started out transforming the joy of being with people into music. Even as he gets older and the young man’s rock ‘n’ roll rage fades, he can still write songs that you want to sing with your friends. An example from comedy: Bill Cosby. The older he gets, the more stories he has about the comedy of the family household.

The artist that can only transform rage is like a carpenter who only knows how to build things out of wood. Once there’s a wood shortage he’s useless. But if he learns to make tables out of stone, if he diversifies his raw materials, then he’s good no matter what happens to trees, just like the artist who can transform joy is good no matter what happens to rage.